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Document name: : of Dreams Document date: 2002 Copyright information: Activities 2 and 4: extracts from: Roger Bagnall ‘Alexandria: Library of Dreams (2002) in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, published by American Philosophical Society. Courtesy of Dr Bagnall and American Philosophical Society. OpenLearn Study Unit: The Library OpenLearn url: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/library- alexandria/content-section-0

Alexandria: Library of Dreams Roger S. Bagnall

Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 146, No. 4 (Dec. 2002), pp. 348–362

Published by: American Philosophical Society

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Alexandria: Library of Dreams Author(s): Roger S. Bagnall Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 146, No. 4 (Dec., 2002), pp. 348-362 Published by: American Philosophical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1558311 . Accessed: 09/09/2014 11:18

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This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alexandria:Library of Dreams1

ROGER S. BAGNALL Professorof Classics and Columbia University

Y TITLE does not intendto suggestthat the Alexandrian Librarydid not exist,but it does point to what I regardas 1JvJ. z the unreal characterof much that has been said about it. The disparitybetween, on the one hand, the grandeurand importance of this library,both in its realityin antiquityand in its image both ancientand modern,and, on theother, our nearlytotal ignorance about it, has been unbearable.No one, least of all modernscholars, has been able to acceptour lack of knowledgeabout a phenomenonthat embodies so manyhuman aspirations. In consequence,a whole literatureof wish- ful thinkinghas grown up, in which scholars-even, I fear,the most rigorous-have cast aside the time-testedmethods that normallycon- straincredulity, in order to be able to avoid confessingdefeat. After sketchingbriefly the main lines of our ignoranceof the Library'shis- tory,I shall talk about threetypes of dreamsthat have beguiledcom- mentatorsancient and modern:dreams about the size of theBibliotheca Alexandrina;dreams about placing the blame forits destruction;and dreamsabout the consequencesof its loss.2But thereare some positive lessonsas well, as I hope to show. There is no ancientaccount of the foundationof the Library.3We

I Read 10 November2000. 2The bibliographyon the BibliothecaAlexandrina is enormous;I referto it very selectivelyin whatfollows. The followingworks are citedbelow by author's name: Mostafa El-Abbadi,The Life and Fate of theAncient (Paris, 1990); Rudolf Blum,Kallimachos, the AlexandrianLibrary and the Originsof Bibliography,tr. H. H. Wellisch(Madison, 1991); Lionel Casson, Librariesin the AncientWorld (New Haven, 2001); Diana Delia, "FromRomance to Rhetoric:The AlexandrianLibrary in Classicaland IslamicTraditions," AHR 97 (1992): 1449-67; P. M. Fraser,Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford,1972); K. S. Staikos,The Great :From Antiquity to the (Londonand New Castle,Del., 2000). More extensivereferences to theancient sources than are possiblehere may be foundparticularly in El-Abbadi,Delia, and Fraser. 3 Blum,100, suggeststhat Callixeinos may have given such an account,and thatsome of theinformation in laterwriters may derive from him. I can see no evidencefor this view.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY VOL. 146, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2002

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This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 349 have onlybrief and glancingreferences. The nearestthing to evena briefhistory appears in thepreface to a commentaryon Aristophanes writtenby the Byzantine polymath John Tzetzes in thetwelfth century. Kindercritics say that Tzetzes "preserves much valuable, though to be surenot alwayscorrectly reported, information on ancientliterature and culturalhistory."4 The lesscharitable call him"copious, careless, quarrelsome"and "extremelyinaccurate.... His uncorroboratedevi- denceis accordinglyviewed with much suspicion"5 or "quiteunjustifi- ablyconceited about his own attainments."6Tzetzes, like the ancient traditiongenerally,7 treated II Philadelphosas theking who createdthe Library. He describeshow threemen, Alexandros of Aeto- lia, Lykophronof Chalkis,and Zenodotosof Ephesos,worked with Ptolemyto acquirebooks.8 One mightthen think that the foundationby Philadelphoswas secure.But no. Tzetzes,like othersources, also mentionsthat Ptolemy collectedthe "through"Demetrios of Phaleron.Now thisDem- etrios,a pupil of Theophrastosand earlierof ,had ruledAthens forthe Macedonian kingCassander fora decade (317-307); afterCas- sander'sdeath, he fledto ,joining the court of PtolemyI Soter, the fatherof Philadelphos,where he certainlycontributed much to the royalproject of makingAlexandria a worthyrival to .He made, however,the strategicmiscalculation of supportingas Soter'ssuccessor the older half-brotherof Philadelphos,and whenthe lattercame to the throneinstead, the sexagenarianDemetrios paid for his mistakewith internalexile, dyingsoon thereafter.9He is, in short,not a good candi- date forcollaborator with Ptolemy II. Demetriosis alreadypresent, however, in the earliestsurviving text to talk about the Library,namely the curious Letterto Philocrates,a work of thesecond century B.C. thatclaims to be thework of a courtier of PtolemyII named Aristeas.10As far as we know,there was no such personas thisAristeas.11 Although some competent modern scholars have been at pains to praise Pseudo-Aristeas'sknowledge of the Ptolemaic

4W. 0. Schmitt,Kleine Pauly 5 (Munich,1975), 1033. 5Oxford Classical Dictionary,2d ed. (Oxford,1970), 1102 (P.B.R. Forbes,Robert Browning). 6 L. D. Reynoldsand N. G. Wilson,Scribes and Scholars,2d ed. (Oxford,1974), 62. 7 See Fraser1:321. 8Prolegomena de comoediaAristophanis 2. 9The major source is Diogenes Laertius 5.75-85 (F. Jacoby,Die Fragmenteder GriechischenHistoriker IIB [Leiden,1962], 642-43, no. 228 Ti). 10Andr6Pelletier, s.j., La lettred'Aristee a Philocrate(Paris, 1962). 11Prosopographia Ptolemaica 6 (Leuven,1968), no. 14588, considershim probably fictitious.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 350 ROGER S. BAGNALL milieu,12to the extentthat he reflectsany realityit is thatof the second century,not the third,and the work is fullof incrediblethings.13 The court detail is, indeed, "merelycorroborative detail, intendedto give artisticverisimilitude to an otherwisebald and unconvincingnarra- tive," as Pooh-Bah would put it (Mikado, act 2). It was Demetrios, accordingto Pseudo-Aristeas,who persuaded PtolemyII to commis- sion the translationof theJewish scriptures that we call the in order to help complete the royal library'sholdings; this story, indeed,is the centerpieceof thispiece of Jewishpropaganda. Now mostphilologists, faced with texts full of misinformationand a flatcontradiction such as the juxtapositionbetween Demetrios and Philadelphosoffers, would normallybe extremelyskeptical, or dismiss Demetrios' role as fiction.14Not here, however.Everything reported mustbe keptin some fashion.So, almostunanimously, the reaction has been to suppose that PtolemyI was the real founderof the Library, assisted by Demetrios,while Zenodotos was eithera subordinate" or came to the foreafter Philadelphos came to thethrone.16 The onlyreal basis for such a view, other than a desperatedesire not to abandon the sources,is a statementof thatAristotle taught Ptolemy the

12 Fraser1:696-704 gives a detaileddiscussion, dwelling (699-700) on the author's knowledgeof thePtolemaic court (his picture is clearlythat of thesecond century, after the introductionof courtranks). Fraser dates the work to thereign of PtolemyVI Philometor (180-145 B.C.). Otherviews differ, but a mid-second-centurydate is plausible.For recent generaldiscussions of "Aristeas,"see J.M.G.Barclay, Jews in theMediterranean : FromAlexander to Trajan(323 BCE-i 17 CE) (Berkeley,1999 [Edinburgh,1996]), 138-50 and E. S. Gruen,Heritage and Hellenism:The Reinventionof Jewish Tradition (Berkeley, 1998), 207-22, withthe discussion comparing them by D. R. Schwartz,Classical 95 (2000): 352-54. 13 For example,Ps.-Aristeas believes that there are stilltwelve tribes in Judaea,and he claims that Ptolemyliberated a hundredthousand slaves in Ptolemaicpossession by purchasingthem from their owners. How Fraser(1:700) can thinkthis is a "genuinedocument" is mystifying,although he is not alone. The textcited as a parallel,C. Ord. Ptol. 22, is, despitesome verbal similarities (accepted even by the usually skeptical Gruen [above, n. 12], 211), radicallydifferent. Captives taken by PtolemyI to Egyptwere, if slaves at all, in preciselythe class (slaves sold by the crown)that the ordinanceof 260 B.C. leftin the undisturbedpossession of theirowners. 14E. A. Parsons,The AlexandrianLibrary: Glory of the HellenicWorld (Amsterdam, 1952), 83-105, in discussingthe foundationand buildingof the Library,recognizes the weaknessof Ps.-Aristeas'sevidence and thedifficulties with Tzetzes (whom he discussesin greatdetail), but refuses to giveup theinformation they provide. Staikos, 60-61, also notes theinsecurity of the evidence for Demetrios, but by 71, n. 22, he has succumbedto thinking that"the eventsdescribed by Aristeascannot be fictitious."Gruen (above, n. 12), 209, is moreconsistently critical in regardingDemetrios' involvement as fiction. 15E.g.,Blum, 102. 16 So Delia, 1460. The latestversion of thisis Casson's formulation(34): "It was the brainchildof PtolemyI, even thoughit may not have come into beinguntil the reign of his son."

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 351 formationof a library.17This remark, which can hardlybe literallytrue (Aristotledied in 322), is takento meanthat the idea ofsuch a library, broadand scientificin character,was Peripateticand cameto Ptolemy throughDemetrios. That is notunreasonable, but it hardlyshows that PtolemyI took any specific action. And, to be sure,Alexander, , and Zenodotos,the trio mentioned by Tzetzes, were active during Phil- adelphos'reign. So muchfor our lack of precise information about the foundationand earlygrowth of theLibrary. It mustbe addedthat we are hardlyin bettershape concerning the famous Mouseion, the rela- tionshipof which to theLibrary is also a matterof speculation.18 It is to Pseudo-Aristeasalso thatwe owe theearliest surviving fig- uresfor the size of the Library. He has Demetriostell Ptolemy that the Librarynow has morethan 200,000 books, but he hopesto bringit up to 500,000 beforelong.19 Tzetzes tells us thatthe Palace Librarycon- tained400,000 "mixed"(symmigeis) books and 90,000 "unmixed" (amigeis).He also reportsthat there was an "externallibrary" with 42,800 books.Although there has beenmuch controversy, it is likely that"mixed" refers to rollscontaining more than one work (and perhaps morethan one author),"unmixed" to worksoccupying -rolls (oftenmultiple rolls) by themselves.20 Later writers give other figures: AulusGellius (Noct. Att. 7.17.3) says 700,000 rolls (but some "inferior" manuscriptsgive 70,000). Seneca (De tranq.animi 9.5) reproachesLivy forshowing regret at thedestruction of 40,000 volumes(an excessive luxury,in Seneca'sview) in the AlexandrineWar; modernscholars, witha bentfor gigantism, have suspectedthis of beingan errorfor 400,000,21on thebasis of a figurein thelate historian (Hist.

17Strabo608c. See Fraser1:320, on theproblems of this passage. As carefula philologist as Hugh Lloyd-Jones,in a reviewcastigating L. Canfora(below, n. 49) foruncritical use of evidence,takes the role of Demetriosas a given(Greek in a Cold Climate[London, 1991], 115-22; fromNew York Review of Books, 14 June 1990). Similarly,Robert Barnes, "CloisteredBookworms in the Chicken-Coopof the : The AncientLibrary of Alexandria,"in Roy MacLeod, ed., The Libraryof Alexandria:Centre of Learningin the AncientWorld (London, 2000), 61-77, withoutengagement of the literature on thesubject. It is truethat Irenaeus and Clementof Alexandria(more confusedly) indicate Ptolemy Soter as thefounder (see El-Abbadi,79-80), butit is notclear that this rests on anyindependent tradition;they may simplyhave recognizedthe problemof connectingPhiladelphos and Demetrios. 18See Fraser1:312-19 and El-Abbadi,84-90, foraccounts of theMouseion. As withthe Library,our accounts of it comemainly from the Roman period. Lloyd-Jones (above, n. 17) correctlyreminds us ofhow muchwe do notknow. 19Ps.-Aristeas'saccount, with figures, is repeatedin Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 12.13. 20 See Fraser1:329 on thispoint. Why Fraser (328) saysthat Tzetzes is "ouronly evidence as to thenumber" I do notknow. See Fraser2:474 n. 108, demolishingthe view that Tzetzes' figurescome from . 21 See,e.g., Delia, 1458 n. 38.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 352 ROGER S. BAGNALL adv.pagan. 6.15.31-32), whereonce again some manuscriptsgive 40,000 insteadof the majority400,000. AmmianusMarcellinus, writ- ing of the ,tells us that it containeda libraryand that "the unanimous testimonyof ancient records declares that 700,000 vol- umes,brought together by theunremitting energy of thePtolemaic kings, were burned in the Alexandrinewar" (22.16.13). He has of course been reproachedby modernsfor confusingthe Palace and Serapeum libraries-moreon thislater.22 It is reasonablyobvious thatthe ancient sources thoughtthe librarieswere enormousbut had no good figures to work with.23In any case, figuresin ancienttexts were easily cor- ruptedin transmissionand oftensurvive in multiplereadings. We have alreadyseen thatPseudo-Aristeas has thatleast attractive quality in a source: to be trustedonly where corroboratedby better evidence,and thereunneeded. The qualityof the restof the latertradi- tion about the size of the Libraryis not much better.But let us turnto askingabout the inherentplausibility of the numbers.The basic ques- tionswe should ask are, how manybooks probablyexisted in theearly third century,how likely it is that large-scalecollecting continued under the later Ptolemiesand the Romans, and whetherthese figures are at all in line withwhat we know of otherancient libraries.24 The computerdatabank of ancientGreek literature, the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, containsabout 450 authorsof whom at least a few words survivein quotationand whose lives are thoughtto have begun by the late fourthcentury. No doubt therewere authorsextant in the earlyHellenistic period of whom not a line survivestoday, but we can- not estimatetheir numbers. Of most of these 450, we have literallya fewsentences. There are another175 knownwhose livesare placed, or

22SeeJ. C. Rolfe'snote in the Loeb Ammianus(2:302 n. 1), confidentlyand precisely informingus that"at thetime of thebattle of Pharsaliathe total number was 532,800 [i.e., 490,000 in themain library and 42,800 in theSerapeum] and it mayhave reached 700,000 bythe time of theAlexandrine war." 23 See Delia, 1458-59. Only by collapsingantiquity into a singlechronological horizon could one say that"contemporary accounts suggest that they amassed as manyas 500,000 texts"(The Economist,8 April2000, p. 92). Staikos,70, claimsthat "there is no doubtthat the Librarydid have a stockof severalhundred thousand rolls, and whenall thereliable contemporaryevidence is evaluatedit is reasonableto suggestthat the highest figure of all- 700,000 rolls-does not sound excessiveand may even be an exaggeration."What "the reliablecontemporary evidence" consists of is hardto see. 24 Barnes(above, n. 17), 65, oddlycites the library at ,for which gives the(probably unreliable) figure of 200,000 volumes,as evidencein favorof the high numbers of volumesat Alexandria.On the otherhand, he also says "it has been suggested"that Alexandriahad only70,000 differenttitles in the thirdcentury (he does not footnotethis statement,but Lloyd-Jones[above, n. 17], 117, citesE. G. Turner,Greek Papyri [Oxford, 1968] forthis assertion, without page number;it does not appearin Turner'sdiscussion of theAlexandrian Library on pp. 102-03).

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 353 whosebirths are placed, in thethird century B.C. Mostof these authors probablywrote what by modernstandards was a modestamount-a fewbook-rolls full, perhaps. Even the most voluminous authors of the group,like the Atheniandramatists, probably filled no morethan a hundredrolls or so. If the averagewriter filled 50 rolls,our known authorsto theend of thethird century would have produced 31,250 rolls.We mustthen assume, to savethe ancient figures for the contents ofthe Library, either that more than 90 percentof classical authors are noteven quoted or citedin what survives, or that the acquired a dozen copiesof everything,or somecombination of theseunlikely hypotheses.If we were(more plausibly) to use a loweraverage output figureper author,the hypothesesneeded to save the numberswould becomeproportionately more outlandish.25 To look at mattersanother way, just 2,871,000 words of Greek are preservedfor all authorsknown to have livedat leastin partin the fourthcentury or earlier.Adding the third and secondcenturies brings the totalto 3,773,000words (or about 12,600 pages of 300 words each).26At an averageof 15,000 wordsper roll,this corpus would requirea mere251 rolls.Even at an averageof 10,000words per roll, thefigure would be only377 rolls.It was estimatedby one eminent ancienthistorian that the original bulk of historical writings in ancient Greeceamounted to somethinglike forty times what has survived.27If so, our estimatewould runto an originalbody of 10,000 to 15,000 rolls.This may be too low,but is it likelythat it is too low bya factor of thirtyor forty,and thatonly one wordin 1,500 or 2,000 has sur- vived?Again, we would be requiredto believethat we do not even have the namesof the vast majorityof ancientauthors, or thatthe Librarypossessed thirty or fortycopies not only of but of every singleauthor. We cannotsave the figures by supposing that growth after the third century,or evenafter the second century, accounts for the difference. For one thing,none of our evidencefor book acquisitionis laterthan thethird century, and mostof it concernsPtolemy II and PtolemyIII, thelatter being the subject of thefamous, but probably unbelievable, anecdotesin Galenabout seizing books from passing ships and hijacking

25H. Strasburger,Studien zur AltenGeschichte 3 (New York,1990), 178-79, lists32 historicalwriters for whom we know exact or approximatenumbers of books originally producedbut now lost. The averageis 28.2; itwould fall to 24 ifwe excludedAristotle (the city constitutions),an altogetherexceptional figure. And historians were relatively long-winded. 26 Thesefigures are computed from the files of the invaluable Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (Irvine);I am gratefulto Maria Panteliafor supplying them. 27Strasburger(above, n. 25), 180-81. He worksmainly with Teubner pages ratherthan rollsin hiscomputations, but the results come to muchthe same thing.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 354 ROGER S. BAGNALL theoriginals of the tragedians from Athens.28 It is mostunlikely, at all events,that an activeacquisitions policy was pursuedin thewake of theexpulsion of most of the Mouseion's intellectuals in 145 B.C. More- over,if we are to giveany credence to thesenumbers, why should we notbe consistentin ourcredulity and believethat Demetrios of Phale- ron alreadyhad amassed200,000 volumesin thefirst decade of the thirdcentury B.C., as Pseudo-Aristeassays? An amusingsidelight to suchreflections is provided by a blockof granite,in thetop ofwhich is a hollowed-outspace measuring 19.5 by 23 centimetersand 8 centimetersdeep. Found in 1847 and now in Vienna,it has thelegend "Dioskourides, 3 rolls"inscribed on itsface. It has generallybeen seen as a storagecontainer for three rolls; becauseit was foundnear where the Library is thoughtto have been located,it was quicklyidentified as partof theLibrary's equipment.29 Althoughothers rejected this identification, almost everyone has agreed thatit was indeeda book-storagedevice. A libraryof a half-million rollswould have required 166,667 of these containers. It is noteasy to imaginea structureand shelvingsystem in whichsuch granite contain- ers wouldhave stood;there is no lid, either.No wonderone scholar hastilyassures us, althoughwithout any evidence,that "only rare manuscriptswould have requiredsuch custom-madestone bins for theirpreservation."30 Actually, there is no reasonto thinkthat it held papyrusrolls at all. Its traditionaldepiction in drawings(Fig. 1) no doubthelped encourage such ideas, but a soberlook at thereal thing (Fig.2) showsthat only a smallfraction of theblock consisted of this hollowspace.31 It was in factsurely a base fora statueor bust. In sum,the ancient figures for the size of the Library or thenumber ofvolumes lost in theAlexandrine War do notdeserve any credence.32

28These are quotedin everytreatment of thesubject; cf., e.g., El-Abbadi, 73-102; more briefly,Barnes (above, n. 17), 65-66. Hardlyanyone has eversuggested that they might not be factual. 29 The actuallocation in thepalace quarteris unknown,but it has beenargued that it was in thearea near the modern Nabi Daniel Streetand northof Horreya Avenue. For the history of the question,see MieczyslawRodziewicz, "A Reviewof the ArchaeologicalEvidence Concerningthe CulturalInstitutions in AncientAlexandria," Graeco-Arabica 6 (1995): 317-32. 30Delia,1455. 31 Fora comprehensivebibliography, see now E. Bernand,Inscriptions grecques d'Alexandrie ptoMmaique(Cairo, 2001), 167-69, no. 65, but evenhe merelyreprints a drawingof the nineteenthcentury. I am gratefulto Dr. AlfredBernhard-Walcher of the Kunsthistorisches Museum,Antikensammlung, Vienna, for the photographprinted here and access to the originalin April2002. I discussthis object in detailin an articleforthcoming in theBulletin de la Sociteoarcheologique d'Alexandrie. 32Blum, 107, is one ofthe few scholars to doubtthe ancient figures.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 355

17?"~1

LAlOYLKOYPIAHYr TOM0I1/ He 1 71 FIGURE 1. Drawingof granite block (from Delia)

Theydo not appearto reston anygood ancientauthority, they were repeatedfrom author to author,and when theirconsequences are examined,they lead to impossibilitiesand absurdities.The actual numberswere probably lower, perhaps by as muchas one orderof

-al

FIGURE 2. Photographof graniteblock (photograph courtesy Vienna, Antik- ensammlung,Kunsthistorisches Museum)

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 356 ROGER S. BAGNALL magnitude.33The Libraryof Alexandria,however comprehensive for itstime, was noton a scalecomparable with the great research libraries ofthe twentieth century. Indeed,how could it havebeen? One has onlyto imaginethe diffi- cultiesinvolved in catalogingsuch a collection.Book-form catalogs, evenwith all the advantagesof the largecodex, ceased to be useful whenmodern libraries started to reachthe kinds of middlesix-figure sizesimagined for Alexandria, and hadto be replacedby the card cata- log, unknownin antiquity.My own university'slibrary grew from 20,000 volumes in 1856 to 100,000 in 1889 and 362,000 in 1903.34 Eventhe giants did notreach the middle six digitsuntil the middle of the nineteenthcentury, precisely the point at whichthe card catalog startedto comeinto use. The BritishMuseum had onlysome 200,000 volumesin 1830, reachinga milliona thirdof a centurylater.35 Calli- machus's famousPinakes, a systematiclisting of genres,authors, and works in 120 books, could not have held the informationnecessary to catalog hundredsof thousandsof rolls.36 Nothingin the Library'shistory has quite inflamedthe imagination so muchas its destruction.But how was it destroyed?This is a murder mysterywith a numberof suspects,each at least withopportunity and means. The most popular candidate has been , whose operationsin 48 B.C. in the harborof Alexandriaare oftenblamed for settingfire to the librarynear the shore.The turbulentpolitical history of the thirdcentury of our era also offerssome possibilities,including the emperorsCaracalla, ,and ,all of whom did sig- nificantdamage in Alexandria.The anti-Christianparty insists that it

33Cf. AndrewJ. Carriker,The Libraryof Eusebiusof Caesarea (Ph.D. diss.,Columbia Univ.,1999), 32, remarkingthat "a librarythat was a tenthof thissize [sc. the500,000 in Ps.-Aristeas]would still have been very large in antiquity,"and collectingfigures for ancient libraries. 34JamesH. Canfield,in A Historyof Columbia University,1754-1904 (New York, 1904), 437-41. 35 See AllenKent and Harold Lancour,eds., Encyclopediaof Libraryand Information Science4 (New York,1970), 295, forthe British Museum's growth; 4:277, on therise of the cardcatalog, which was dominantin theU.S. by 1893. 36The Pinakeswere not themselvesthe library'scatalog (see Fraser1:453), but were certainlybased on it.If its books were standard rolls of 20 sheets,and ifthey used relatively narrowcolumns (yielding 27 columnsto a roll)and werewritten in smallletters (44 linesto a column),they will still have contained no morethan 142,560 lines.As muchof thework was biographical,only part of that total is availablefor listing works. Of coursesome works had multiplebooks, but Callimachus seems to havelisted some works (like ) poem by poem and arguedpoints about them;a numberof entriesper book-rollwill have resulted, balancingthe multi-roll works. If two-thirds of thespace was used fortitles and on average each line representeda title(both assumptionsprobably too favorableto the numberof books),the total would stillnot have reached 100,000 rolls.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 357 was themob of monks responsible for the destruction ofthe Serapeum in 391, who wipedout classicallearning. The pro-Christian,anti-Muslim sentimentcan believethe stories that blame instructions given by the caliphto Amr,the Arab conqueror of Egypt,to feedthe books to the firesin 642, butthese originate centuries after the fact and are surely fiction.37 Passionsstill run high on thismatter. When Glen Bowersock first invitedme to presentthis paper, I hesitatedbecause of a traumatic earlyexperience. I wrotean articleon the AlexandrianLibrary on commissionfor a short-livedmagazine called The Dial, publishedfor Channel13. The editordid notlike my caution about the accounts of thedestruction of the Library and, without telling me, rewrote the arti- cle to blameeverything squarely on theChristians.38 Whether he hated Christianityor justliked a simplestory line, I do notknow. The matteris, truth to tell,not so clear.39The subjecthas beenend- lesslydebated by modern scholars, but with little result. There was cer- tainlystill some substantial library in Roman Alexandria. This is evident fromSuetonius's life of (20), wherewe learnthat he replaced bookslost to firein Romanlibraries in partby sending scribes to Alex- andriato copymanuscripts there.40 And someof the scholarlywork thatwent on in theRoman period in Alexandriais difficultto imagine withouta substantiallibrary. As theMuseum was certainlystill opera- tive in the Roman period,belief in a Caesariandestruction of the Libraryrequires the uneconomicalassumption that the Librarywas destroyedin the firebut the Museumwas not. Recentlythere have been signsof a consensusin formationthat the mostlikely date of

37 See El-Abbadi,167-72. A. J.Butler, The Arab Conquest of Egypt, 2d ed. byP. M. Fraser (Oxford1902, 19782),401-26, alreadypronounced the story a fable,although not all ofhis argumentsare persuasive.See also Fraser'saddenda to Butler,pp. lxxv-lxxvi,and Delia, 1465-67. 38 "Lessonsof the Alexandrian Library," The Dial 1.2 (Oct. 1980): 96-100. 39Matters are made worseby the failure of our bestsource, Strabo, to speakclearly on thematter. In his Geography17.1.8, he saysthat "the Mouseion is also partof thepalaces, possessinga peripatosand and large oikos, in whichthe commontable of the philologoi,men who are membersof the Mouselon, is located.This synodoshas propertyin commonand a priestin chargeof theMouseion, formerly appointed by thekings, but now byCaesar." (I havekept technical terms in transliteration.)Why does Strabonot mention the Library?His odd allusivenessin 2.1.5 has also arousedsuspicion: "For Eratosthenestakes all thesematters as actuallyestablished by thetestimony of themen who had beenon the spot,having encountered many hypomnemata, with which he was well furnished,having a librarysuch as Hipparchoshimself says it was." Was itno longersuch in Strabo'stime? And yet,it looks as ifthe palace quarterhad beenunscathed by the fires, to judgefrom the overall tenorof Strabo'sreport. 40On what basis Staikos(83) thinksthis episode might indicate the existenceof Latin worksin theLibrary, I cannot see.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 358 ROGER S. BAGNALL majordestruction for the Palace Library is 273, withAurelian's recap- tureof Alexandria from the Palmyrenes the occasion.41 But there is no directevidence concerning the Library in theancient sources for this; theargument, rather, is thatthe palace area was devastatedat thistime and thegreat Library was probablya victimof this larger destruction. The argumentis even morecomplicated, however, because it is generallythought that there were multiple libraries in Alexandria. John Tzetzes,you will recall, speaks of an outerlibrary. He does nottell us whereit was. Modernscholarship has uniformlyfilled in thegap with thestatement of a Christianwriter, Epiphanius, the bishop of Salamis bestknown for his compendiumon heresies,to theeffect that "later anotherlibrary was builtin theSerapeum, . . . whichwas calledthe daughterof the first one."42 Other Christian writers echo this informa- tion.Archaeological work at theSerapeum has shownthat there were spacesthat could have housed books, but that is as muchas excavation has revealed.43The age of thislibrary is unknown,although it is usu- allythought, on notmuch evidence, to go backto thetime of Ptolemy III's constructionat theSerapeum. Neither Caesar's fire nor Aurelian's destructionwould necessarily have affected the Serapeum; thus a library couldhave survivedin Alexandriauntil the destructionof the Sera- peumitself. Whatis lesscommonly recognized44 is the existence of what a film about brittlebooks someyears ago called "slow fires."Papyrus is a good material,acid freeand highlydurable. It can lastfor hundreds of yearsunder good conditions.But Alexandria hardly represented ideal conditions.It has a Mediterraneanclimate, not a Saharanone, with humidityenough to be detrimentalto books.No papyrihave survived therefrom antiquity to thepresent day, unlike in drierdesert areas in Egypt.Books deterioratealso withuse, and who is to say thatthere were no mice or insectsin the greatlibrary? These certainlywere

41 Most recently,Casson, 47, adoptsthis view. 42Epiphanius,De mens.et pond. 11, quotedalong with Tertullian, Apol. 18, in Fraser 2:478 n. 132. See Fraser'sdiscussion, 1:322-24, citingin footnotesthe other evidence. 43 And eventhere, we findlittle comfort. M. Rodziewicz(above, n. 29), 321, pointsout thatthe colonnaded spaces usuallythought of as a possiblelocation in theSerapeum were "destroyedin theearly Roman period," so thatthe laterRoman library's"location in the temenosremains unknown until now." 44 An exceptionis mycolleague Alan Cameron,quoted in theNew Yorker,8 May 2000, p. 97. The notionput forward by the author of that article, that is more"stable" than papyrus,is, however,fiction. James O'Donnell, Avatarsof the Word (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 52, also pointsout thatrecopying into codices would have beenessential to survival.(His statementsthat Menander was notcopied into form and thatparchment predominatedover papyrus in codices,however, are erroneous.)Staikos, 89, also concludes finallythat deterioration was theculprit.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 359 presentin archiveseven in drierparts of Egypt. We haveplenty of evi- dencefor papyrus rolls remaining in use fora century,and somefor survivalas longas twoor eventhree hundred years.45 But that is about thelimit, as faras we can see. The likelihoodis thatby thereign of Tiberiusrelatively little of what had beencollected under the first three Ptolemieswas stillusable. Even withouthostile action, then, the Library,or Libraries,of Alexandriawould not have survivedantiquity. Indeed, any library almostcertainly would have been a sorryremnant well beforelate antiquity,unless its books wereconstantly replaced by new copies, withthe rolls being supplanted by codicesin thefourth century. The ancientsalready were aware of thisnecessity: Jerome reports that the libraryat Caesareafounded by the theologian was restoredin themid-fourth century by the copying of the books onto parchment.46 Butthere is no evidencethat any such replacement went on in Alexan- dria,nor any indication that the imperial Roman government provided anybook acquisitionbudget to theLibrary. That does notmean there was none,but it is notlikely to havebeen on thescale needed to main- taina trulygreat library. It is hardto giveup villains,but it looksas ifwe mustabandon the searchfor some individual or smallgroup to blame.The disappearance of the Libraryis the inevitableresult of the end of the impetusand interestthat brought it intobeing and of thelack of thekind of sus- tainedmanagement and maintenancethat would have seen it through successivetransitions in thephysical media by means of which the texts couldhave beentransmitted. It is idle,given this reality, to indulgein such Gibbon-likereflections as the followingclaim of Hugh Lloyd- Jones:"If thislibrary had survived,the dark ages, despite the domi- nanceof ,might have beena good deal lighter;its loss is one ofthe greatest of the many disasters that accompanied the ruin of theancient world."47 This is to getthings backward. It is notthat the disappearanceof a libraryled to a darkage, nor that its survival would haveimproved those ages. Rather, the dark ages-if thatis whatthey were,and in theEastern we maydoubt the utility of sucha concept-showtheir darkness by the factthat the authorities both east and west lacked the will and meansto maintaina great library.An unburnedbuilding full of decayingbooks would not have madea particle'sworth of difference.

45Forreferences, see NaphtaliLewis, Papyrus in ClassicalAntiquity (Oxford, 1974), 60- 61, withaddenda in Papyrusin ClassicalAntiquity: A Supplement(Pap. Brux.23, Brussels, 1989), 32-33. 46See Carriker(above, n. 33), 22-23, citingJerome, Ep. 34.1 and De virisill. 113. 47Lloyd-Jones(above, n. 17), 117.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 360 ROGER S. BAGNALL

Indeed,no morebooks would have survived antiquity if the Library had not beendestroyed (deliberately or accidentally)than did so any- way.The destructionsimply is not important.This mayseem like a bleakassessment, but it need not be so. It suggeststhat we shouldturn our attentionaway fromthe dramaticsingle event and towardthe forcesand personalitiesthat create and sustaincultural institutions, for it is theirabsence in the Roman period,not the presenceof some destructiveforce, that decided the fateof the books of Alexandria. Why shouldanyone be disillusionedby the realizationthat creative achievementssurvive only if we fostera culturalmilieu that values them? Most booksexisted in multiplecopies, and it is thefailure of mostto survivethat is mostimportant. The raritiesof the Alexandrian Library too owe theirdisappearance as muchto omissionas to commission. I havedevoted quite a bitof timeto showingthat those who have writtenabout the Library of Alexandria have used dubious methods to arriveat improbableconclusions, pursuing what I believeto be false dreams.But Alexandriais also a libraryof valid dreams,and I shall close by evokinga fewof them.First, and mostdirectly, the Library and Mouseionsustained for the first time a philologicalenterprise, in whichscholars tried to establishcorrect texts and to thinkabout the artof doing so. Theirearliest efforts were not terribly sophisticated by our standards,but they laid thefoundations for all thathas followed. This workhad tangibleresults: In theliterary papyri from Egypt, we can see the point-startingabout 150 B.C.-at which the messy, unstandardizedtradition of Homer's text was replacedby the standard textthat we owe to Aristarchosof Samos,which lies at theroot of the entireHomeric textualtradition since the second centuryB.C.48 Althoughour copiesof classicalliterature today are not thoseof the Libraryof Alexandria,most of them undoubtedly owe theirquality, if nottheir survival, to thescholars of the Mouseion.49 Second,the Library served as thebase fora wide rangeof other scholarlyactivities, scarcely possible without its rich array of texts.I cannotevoke here anything like the full range of intellectualpursuits

48 See mostrecently Johannes Kramer, "Die Geschichteder Editionstechnikenund die literarischenPapyri," Archiv far Papyrusforschung 46 (2000): 19-40 at 22-23, puttingthe Alexandrianwork in thecontext of the entire history of critical editing. 49 LucianoCanfora, The VanishedLibrary (Berkeley, 1990), 197,concludes by minimizing theimportance of the Libraryof Alexandriain thisregard, claiming that "what has come down to us is derivednot fromthe greatcentres but from'marginal' locations, such as convents,and fromscattered private copies." Actually, much of what has survivedcomes to us throughConstantinople, wherever it ultimatelywound up; Canfora'sclaim is thus spurious.But even if it were not, it ignores the impact of Alexandria (and othergreat centers) on thetransmission of the texts that wound up in moreremote locations. Cf. the half-hearted rejoinderof R. Barnes(above, n. 17), 75.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ALEXANDRIA: LIBRARY OF DREAMS 361 supportedby the Library's collections, but they included many attempts to compilesystematic information about differentsubjects.50 One exampleis geography,where was able to makedecisive progressin creatingthe mathematical foundations of thatsubject and in enablingthe development of cartography.51 Third,and probablymost important of all, theLibrary of Alexan- driabequeathed the image of itself,the idea of a large,comprehensive libraryembracing all of knowledge.As JamesO'Donnell has put it, "thelibrary at Alexandriahas longloomed as a chimeraof power and mysteryon thehorizon of our culture."52The sourcestell us thatthis reachextended beyond Greek culture to theliterature of its neighbors, rangingfrom the Jews to India.They probably exaggerate, but it is still significantthat alreadywithin a centuryor so of its foundingthe Libraryhad becomea symbolof universality ofintellectual inquiry and of thecollection of writtentexts.53 Even if Pseudo-Aristeas'sstory of thecreation of the Septuagint is fictitious,it shows us thatinclusion in theLibrary was a kindof universallyrecognized validation to which people would aspire.The Librarywas so far beyondanything else antiquityhad knownup to thatpoint that it embodied these aspirations and appealedto theimagination of all who wroteabout it. Itsgrip on theminds of all who contemplatedit was alreadyin antiquityas great as itwas later,and ithardly mattered what fanciful numbers they used to expressits greatness.Although the' authors whose works survived antiquitytold posteritylittle of any concretesubstance about the Library,they transmitted its indelible impression on theirimaginations. This imagewas passed on to the Renaissanceand the modern world,and everyone of our greatcontemporary libraries owes some- thingto it. By way of example,the paperof mycolleague Carmela Franklin(below, p. 372) describeshow a Vaticanlibrarian of thefif- teenthcentury wrote a Latinversion of Tzetzes'potted history of the Libraryin themargin of a manuscriptof Plautus.The contemporary attemptto createa new universallibrary in Alexandriaitself, which has receivedenormous press coverage, is onlythe latest representative

soFraser 1:447-79 givesa surveyof "Alexandrianscholarship," but many other sections of his book are also relevant. 5iSee on this point Mostafa El Abbadi, "The AncientLibrary and its World-wide Connections:The Making of a WorldMap," Proceedingsof the 1st AnnualBibliotheca AlexandrinaSymposium, 17-19 October,1998 (Alexandria,n.d.), 22-26. For a general discussionof geography in Alexandria,see Fraser1:520-52. 520'Donnell,Avatars (above, n. 44), 33. 53The widestclaims, however, come in late Christiansources and maybe no morethan embellishmentson Ps.-Aristeas;cf. Barnes(above, n. 17), 67. They are, however,quoted withoutchallenge by most authors; cf., e.g., Lloyd-Jones (above, n. 17), 116-17.

This content downloaded from 137.108.145.45 on Tue, 9 Sep 2014 11:18:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 362 ROGER S. BAGNALL ofthis tradition. Many aspects of this project have been criticized, per- haps withreason,54 but we willhave the right to denigratethe aspira- tionsit embodiesonly when we becomewilling to giveup our own pursuitsof theAlexandrian dream. Thankfully, I see no signsof such renunciation.Although it is too lateto recovermuch of thereality of thePtolemaic library, its dream is verymuch still with us.55

54The mostserious problem at presentbeing the lack of a coherentcollection development policyand fundsto carryit out. The beautifulworking space in thelibrary, however, is a worthysuccessor to theMuses' bird-cage. 55Thanks to Glen Bowersockfor the invitation to deliverthis paper; to Alan Cameron, CarmelaFranklin, G. N. Knauer,and Maria Panteliafor various comments and references; and to Mostafa El-Abbadi for offprintsof rare publicationsand a visit to the new Alexandrinain January2001.

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